


In Safe Keeping

by OldSportSquared



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Light-Hearted, M/M, Multi, Post-Canon, Threesome - F/M/M, light humor, mini-mini-mission
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-07
Updated: 2020-11-07
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:07:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27426928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OldSportSquared/pseuds/OldSportSquared
Summary: Napoleon has suffered worse nights, but he doesn't precisely recall when. Gaby on the other hand seems positively delighted, the cat that got the cream, the fish and the tastiest bit of the assignment
Relationships: Illya Kuryakin/Napoleon Solo/Gaby Teller
Comments: 8
Kudos: 55
Collections: Fic In A Box





	In Safe Keeping

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



The orchestra is subpar, the white wine is warm, the red wine two degrees below room temperature, the champagne best not described. Gaby, her head tilting back as she dances with him, has chosen for some obscure reason to take a bath in Shalimar perfume, and Napoleon’s nose is itching. He has suffered worse nights, but he doesn't precisely recall when. Gaby on the other hand seems positively delighted, the cat that got the cream, the fish and the tastiest bit of the assignment. 

"Solo," she says, a little whisper of sound against his ear. "Do you want to tell him or shall I?" 

Her fingers dig into the meat of his right shoulder, pushing him just very slightly. Napoleon, generally more used to leading the dance than following, had given up on that a long time ago with Gaby so he obediently revolved, completing a perfect half circle, bringing Illya who was leaning against the wall into his direct eyeline. "Tell him what darling?" he says, half for the benefit of any audience, half because he enjoys watching Gaby look up to the ceiling as though asking for secret help from a chandelier. He holds her a little tighter against him, this bit isn't strictly protocol, but it's too tempting with her so close.

"He's done too good a job at looking like security, he has, you know, the little headset. The bad suit. I think the Walther. It's too much, I'm going to laugh."

Napoleon treads on her feet as the music quickens. Not too hard, the chances are reasonably high that she'll need to run on them later on. Just enough to make her swallow her smile. "I'll tell him," he says, and she lets him guide her, light as a feather, until they're next to their cheap host. 

here he deposits her, on the edge of the dance floor. "I need the men's room," he says, crude, ungentlemanly. "Find another glass of champagne." It's the perfect amount of rudeness, out of the corner of his eye, he can see Petrov straighten a little as though scenting an easy kill, circling closer to Gaby. She plays it to perfection, a little crumple of the shoulders, an abandoned wife and a boorish husband, easy pickings. 

"Direct me to the bathroom," he snaps at Ilya. He can almost hear the slow grind of teeth through Illya's fixed smile. 

"Certainly," Illya says, accent thicker than usual, a little fake or perhaps a little realer, leads the way towards the door, and stops just into the hallway. He hesitates, leans in for a second, and Napoleon blinks at the hideous whiff of  _ Brut _ that drifts across, can feel the familiar itching of a sneeze. Any hope he'd had that Ilya had miraculously discovered the keycode of the safe vanished with Ilya's next words. "Napoleon the man is serving lumpfish roe, he is saying it is Beluga caviar. He is an animal. I am ashamed to call him Russian."

Illya's eyes are furious and intent. Napoleon takes a chance and pats his shoulder. "Hang on," he says. "It'll be over soon sport." It's only fair to aggravate both of his partners equally. 

The house Napoleon finds himself moving through is meant to look staggeringly, obscenely wealthy. He's never seen as much bad taste crammed into one mansion or so much wood backing to so much gold. The bathroom is on his right, but he ignores it, brushes his fingers along his jacket to make sure the tools of his trade are still safe. Petrov it seems, had not considered that he would need much security here. He's living the life of a displaced Russian tsar, only he's doing it on the cheap, all show and tell, no substance. Collecting expats so he could keep pretending that a houseful of strangers might prove some protection.

If Napoleon couldn't still taste the supposed champagne in his mouth he might feel pity.

As it is, he has every intention of retrieving the piece of blackmail information that kept the wolves from the door, acquiring a decent drink and a good night's sleep. He thinks he might lock Illya and Gaby in the bathroom until they've washed off whatever they've dipped themselves in. 

From the inside account contained in the report that had landed on Waverly's desk, Petrov couldn't keep his hands off the last of his treasures, the blue chip of his collection. Would return upwards of ten times a day, a mawkish insistence on pawing the papers over, flanked at all times by two bodyguards, generally picked for sheer size. Rumour had it, they had to fit the suit of their predecessor. Illya had replaced the last hire by dint of being ten percent cheaper and having forty two inch shoulders. 

Waverly had given the usual spiel, they would of course be utterly denied if caught, expenses were to be receipted and filed pronto on return, Petrov was to be unharmed and in one piece when they left, and the safehouse was sans cutlery after the last incident. Which is why apparently they couldn't rely on Illya simply waiting until he was the lucky bodyguard on rotation to knock Petrov out and take the papers. Gaby was doing her bit downstairs in keeping him distracted. 

Which left Napoleon walking up the stairs, every sense on high alert, grateful at the very least for the lack of cameras. Petrov was too paranoid for cameras in his own house. The bedroom was about as much of a showroom as the rest of the house, pristine untouched vast white bed, so completely smooth that Napoleon could only imagine Petrov tucked himself up to sleep in a cupboard each night rather than disturb it. In the corner was the one thing that Petrov had clearly spent money on, and a lot of it. A safe with all the trimmings - state of the art bolts, connoisseur keycodes, a formidable little thing. An expert might crack it in two hours. Napoleon had confidence that he could do it in an hour.

Fortunately, Napoleon was a little too much of an old hand for that trick. The safe required two keys turned at once, and every bodyguard had been instructed to face away. It was a nice front and a good timewaster, but it took two minutes of searching to uncover a safe with considerably less bells and whistles hidden behind an engraving of Gorky Park, about the only thing in the room that didn't seem to have come from job lot at auction. Napoleon was still, despite repeated requests, forced to use his own picks and kit for jobs. Or rather missions as they were called now. 

_ Budget reasons old boy _ , Waverly had said, while swishing what was clearly an excellent Macallan in a crystal glass.

Still, he'd used these ones for long enough that it took only the most minute of tweaks to get to work and he was feeling confident in a fast crack and early night, when outside in the corridor, he heard the loud giggle of a woman who really wanted someone to know she was coming. Faced with only one option, he reset the safe, swung the engraving back and rolled under the bed, just in time to watch Gaby's feet in Illya's pick of shoes (from the two in her suitcase) and Petrov's scuffed Italian wingbacks enter the room. 

"I will show you," Petrov was saying with the high urgent note in his voice of someone who had been repeatedly insisting the same thing for a while. "You will understand that your husband will be very afraid to cross someone like me." He had crossed, not to the small safe, apparently even drunk and attempting a seduction he wasn't about to whip out the most precious thing in his possession. Instead, he was fumbling in a drawer that Napoleon already knew contained one gun and a variety of other interesting little things. A little drop of ice water ran down his spine. There's no room to manoeuvre his way out from under the bed at speed like this, and neither he nor Gaby had a gun, not in these clothes.

"I believe you," Gaby says. "Let's get another drink." She doesn't sound scared, she sounds a little bored. Napoleon can hear the tension even if Petrov can't though.

Petrov sits down on the bed, and just from the way Gaby's standing, Napoleon can tell that Petrov has a gun, but that equally Gaby doesn't think he'll use it. 

Napoleon tries to shuffle out as quietly as he can on the other side, but it's a poor judgement call as the carpet was never meant to have a grown man slide along it. Petrov's feet tense and he leaps to his feet at whatever minute sound he has heard. Next second he collapses back on top of the bed, victim of Gaby's speed, and the solid impact of her fist.

"Fuck," Gaby says with emphasis. "And before you say anything Illya, he made me do it."

Illya is unsurprisingly at the door with his gun drawn, looking from Gaby's guilty face to Napoleon's perfected  _ nothing here is my fault  _ expression, half way out from under the bed. "We were not meant to hurt him," Illya says, and seals his lips around whatever he was about to say next.

"I had to," Gaby said. "Look, he is on top of Napoleon. Who knows what might have happened."

"There is a bed between them. He is on top of Napoleon who is under a bed," Illya said, reholstering the only authorised gun they had between the three of them.

"Gaby is right," Napoleon adds, if only to keep in the conversation. "You're too literal. You must learn the art of omission. It will make the mission reports look much better."

"American liar," Illya says, with no judgement in his voice. It sounds pretty fond in fact to Napoleon's ears. "The papers. We need to be moving, the boss of security will not believe it takes me this long to use a bathroom. They are only not here because they believe the boss ‘scored big’," and Napoleon can hear the quotation marks. 

"Pretty damn big," Gaby says. "I can't believe they believed that."

That's Napoleon's cue to open the safe up again, while Gaby and Illya rearrange Petrov more neatly on the bed. It's mostly Gaby, Illya looks like he's about to roundhouse kick Petrov in the face. "The caviar was very bad," he says defensively, and moves away to examine the window as though he's checking for another exit, though not before he pulls Gaby towards him and kisses her, sweet and sincere. Napoleon can feel himself smiling as he works. The only thing inside the safe is a buff folder, Napoleon slides the sheets out, not looking at what's printed on them before he tucks them in his inner pocket. That's been the hardest habit to break, he has to soothe his curiosity with the thought that sometimes it was really best not to know what kept you a hollow king in a hollow house. 

Slipping into the corridor is easy, making their way out from the warren of a house, more difficult. Napoleon lags behind, keeps close to the wall, is rewarded by Gaby folding into Illya's side as though he's holding her up as two other bodyguards charge towards them. Napoleon slips into the room nearest to him and listens.

"Relax," Illya says. "Boss was too drunk. We're going back to the party, you should maybe check on him."

Once they're gone, Napoleon slips out of the room. "This is the bit," he gets the chance to say. "Where we run."

Illya has with a marvellous amount of foresight acquired a car, idling gently outside of the house, just waiting for them to get into it. That combined with Illya's knowledge of the gate codes and Gaby's cool, calm collected driving, might leave any other man feeling like he wasn't pulling his weight. Napoleon has no such delusions, it all shakes out between one thing and another, one mission and the next. He slings his arm around Illya where Illya sits in the back of the car with him. "Every team needs a brain," he announces.

"We have three," Gaby says, glancing in her back mirror.

"We have none," Illya corrects her. "Half a one if you count Waverly." Leans his head against Napoleon's for a second, pulls him into a kiss as Gaby takes a tight corner, gentle teasing heat of his lips against Napoleon's mouth. An unexpected side benefit of adrenaline as they've had cause to find out. Napoleon lets him, enjoys the moment while it lasts, the calm before the storm that is the three of them. Gaby has unabashedly pulled the mirror a little more down to glance at them and not at the road. Napoleon turns Illya's head a little more so she can see better in the dim light, thumb stroking along the coarse rasp of Illya's jawline, tongue pressing in before Napoleon pulls away.

"Before anything," Napoleon says. "You both shower. Why on earth do you smell like that?"

"Waverly," Gaby says.. 

Illya nods. "Part of the undercover," he elaborates. "He said it was important to build our identity from the ground up. He sent samples. I take back the half brain."

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading


End file.
